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Lawyer: ACA summoned Tengku Adnan following findings
©New
Straits Times (Used by permission)
KUALA LUMPUR: Challenging the findings of the Royal
Commission of Inquiry on the V.K. Lingam video clip, Umno secretary-general
Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor yesterday charged that they were reached
unlawfully.
He claimed that the findings were also ultra vires (beyond
the scope of) the commission's powers based on three grounds:
- The commission misdirected itself as to the applicable burden and standard of
proof and erroneously applied an inappropriate standard in reaching its
conclusions against him;
- Its findings in respect of Tengku Adnan were based on insufficient probative
evidence and illogical reasoning; and
- Its findings against Tengku Adnan were reached unfairly and in breach of the
rules of natural justice.
Tengku Adnan's counsel Datuk Bastian Pius Vendargon submitted
at the High Court yesterday that by reason of Tengku Adnan's peculiar and
sensitive position, the ultra vires findings of his involvement in conspiracy in
relation to acts of criminality ought to be scrutinised closely by the court.
Tengku Adnan is a former minister in the Prime Minister's Department.
(Last week, Vendargon told the court that the findings had adversely affected
and damaged Tengku Adnan's reputation.)
In July, Datuk V.K. Lingam and four others -- tycoon Tan Sri Vincent Tan, Tengku
Adnan and retired chief justices Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim and former
chief justice Tun Eusoff Chin -- filed separate leave applications for judicial
review to quash the findings of the five-man commission led by former Chief
Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Haidar Mohamed Noor.
Lingam was implicated in the 14-minute controversial video clip which the
commission said showed him in conversation over judicial appointments with Ahmad
Fairuz.
The commission found that Lingam, a lawyer, had asked Tan and Tengku Adnan to
involve themselves actively in the appointment of judges, in particular the
appointment of Ahmad Fairuz as the Chief Judge of Malaya and subsequently
president of the Court of Appeal, and that Tengku Adnan appeared to be Lingam's
"source" in the Prime Minister's Department.
Vendargon, in seeking leave to apply for judicial review to quash the findings,
said Tengku Adnan was supposed to have turned up at the commission as a witness
and nothing more.
"There was no indication as to the matters or the evidence on which he was to be
questioned. Nor does it state that Tengku Adnan was a subject of the
investigation by the commission," said Vendargon.
He said if judicial review was not available, in the absence of a statutory
appeal, Tengku Adnan would have no means of challenging the findings of the
commission.
"This would be manifestly unjust and would deny him a right of access to the
court, which is a fundamental right," he said.
Counsel L.H. Chua, who represented Tan, submitted that the commission had made
the wrong decisions and as such there were bona fide grounds for the court to
grant the leave applications for the judicial review.
Among the grounds raised by Chua were that the findings and decisions were not
supported by any rational or probative evidence or basis, but were based on
speculation, subjective assumptions and conjecture.
"Instead of discharging its functions to ascertain the truth of the contents of
the first video clip, the commission had cast the burden on the applicant to
prove its falsity."
Submissions before High Court judge Datuk Abdul Kadir Musa continue on Sept 16.
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